All over the world, artifacts from the World War II era keep turning up during excavations. Most people find undetonated bombs buried deep within the ground. This time, a group of individuals found something even better.
The Sturmgeschütz IV (StuG IV), was a German assault talk – a variant of the Panzer IV used during the latter part of the Second World War. These tanks were used exclusively as tank destroyers and tactical planning vehicles during the last couple years of WWII.
After the Germans lost the war, lots of their war machines went missing. Some of them were destroyed while others were abandoned or lost.
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In 2006, a group of amateur historians tried to trace the steps of former WWII soldiers in order to locate a StuG along the way.
Luckily, they were able to find a of the StuG IV waiting patiently for 5 decades at the bottom of a river, covered in 10 feet of mud.
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According to these amateur historians, the Polish military tried to recover these tanks in 1954. Unfortunately, due to their weight (around 23 tons of metal, not counting water and silt), their machines were unable to pull the StuGs out of the river bed. Thus, they just left the tanks there to be forgotten for 50 years.
When the historians found this, they immediately salvaged what they could and restored the StuG to its former glory.
As of 2012, the tank has been displayed at Poznan and is the only known running StuG IV in the entire world.
What can you say about this marvelous vehicle? Do you think these amateur historians can find more WWII relics? Share your thoughts in the comments section!
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